Worth Lord of Reckoning (8 page)

“Has your brother met Avery?”

“No, he has not, the wretch.”

“He didn’t tell you about Yolanda, did he?”

“Hard to say, because we don’t exactly correspond, though I’ve sent him an epistle over this folly with Yolanda. The storm is moving off.”

“I should move, too.”

No, she should not. “Soon, my dear.”

When she eased her grip a few drippy, quiet moments later, he let her step back, taking her warmth and a luscious abundance of female curves with her. Everlasting Powers, if he’d known his housekeeper was such a goddess, he’d have removed to the country years ago.

To do exactly what, he would not admit even to himself, but getting caught in storms with her was a delightful place to start.

“I’m much braver if I can remain indoors,” she said, moving off to pet his horse. “He’s a stalwart fellow. His name is Goliath?”

“He’s a big, stalwart fellow, so yes, he’s Goliath.”

“Some draft in his lineage?” She winced as thunder rumbled in the distance.

“On the dam side. Let’s watch the water rise.” He tugged her by the arm away from his horse and brought her to the upstream side of the bridge. “I have good memories of storms, of rafting down swollen streams immediately after a deluge, of seeing all my dams swept out to sea by a good downpour. As a boy, it was wonderful.”

“That must be the appeal of sons for many men,” she said, taking a place along the rail beside him. “Men talk of dynasty, legacies and successions, but what a son really means is more forts in the attics, toy soldiers, and dams.”

“How many brothers have you?”

“Seven, and one sister.”

“No doubt you and this sister are close?”

She peered down into the roiling water. “In a way. You’re being very kind.”

“How will I know whose pig to throw a saddle on if I let you come to harm in a storm, Wyeth? Besides, we aren’t enemies merely because we’re different genders.”

“Gender isn’t a detail, either.”

Her
gender wasn’t a detail. “I like women, I’ll have you know, and not in the sense you’re about to accuse me of, or not exclusively in that sense.” He turned, resting his elbows on the railing, while she kept to her stream-facing position.

“You like women because they cook and clean and sew?”

“I’ve hired men to do those things in my London household, my dear, but no. I like women because they don’t fight stupid duels over inebriated insults nobody can recall the next morning. Women don’t make rude noises in public or relieve themselves against any handy wall. You have seven brothers, Wyeth, I know now you cannot be shocked. I like women—honest women, that is—because they smell good, because they give us babies, because they…what?”

“You are prissy and old-fashioned.”

“You think because I’m such a large fellow I can’t be fastidious?” He let her have her smirk, because it confirmed the weather was no longer unnerving her. “You think because I respect women for their inherent bravery I’m old-fashioned?”

“Bravery in what regard?”

“Leave childbearing to men and the race wouldn’t last a century. All children would have to be born capable of cutting their own meat, washing their own soiled nappies, and talking themselves out of nightmares—twenty times in a twenty-four-hour period, and multiply that times the number of toddlers underfoot. Don’t forget they’d have to teach themselves how to do sums and read, for men hardly know themselves after three years of university.”

She gave him a funny, half-smiling perusal, then pushed off the rail.

“If we keep Goliath to the walk, we can likely find our way home now.”

“You don’t mind the occasional shower when we pass under a tree? I can send a closed carriage back for you.” He didn’t want to. He wanted to settle her right beside him on the gig again, and abruptly, the prospect of visiting his tenants shifted from drudgery to something approximating a pleasant duty.

Particularly if he could manage to dodge a few more storms with Wyeth in the process.

“A little rain isn’t what unnerves me, Mr. Kettering, and I don’t melt.”

He handed her up, having sense enough to keep to himself the thought of circumstances under which she might, indeed, be made to melt.

* * *

Worth Kettering was kind.

The realization disconcerted Jacaranda, because it required her to admit she’d been hell-bent on finding fault with him. He’d handed her down from the gig, bowed over her hand as if they’d been on a social outing, then winked at her and left her in peace.

She understood what that wink meant:
The secret of your chicken-heartedness is safe with me
.

Oh, but he didn’t know the half of it. Yes, she was uncomfortable out in storms, but he didn’t know she’d heard him call her “silly woman,” and the affection in his tone had sent her insides prancing about. Nobody referred to her as silly, though five years ago, she’d been worse than silly. Nobody held her, stroked her hair, or offered her their jacket when she took a chill.

And nobody on the entire face of the earth wore as enticing a scent as Worth Kettering.

He’d be gone soon, though. Trysting was merely a place to find his balance with Yolanda and Avery under the same roof. If Jacaranda were lucky, a few more weeks and Mr. Kettering of the warm jacket, delicious scent, and rogue’s wink would be on his way.

Then she would be on her way. She’d promised, after all, and the usual pleas and threats in Step-Mama’s last epistle had borne a desperate edge.

“Mrs. W!” Old Simmons’s voice was raised in a quavery approximation of a shout. “Mrs. W? Ye must come quick to the children’s rooms.”

He wheezed down the kitchen steps, looking mortally relieved to have found her.

“The young ladies be in a taking, Miss Snyder is wringing her hands, and ye must come.”
“You sit, Mr. Simmons, and catch your breath. I’m on my way.”

She did not run, though. Simmons had already set a questionable example for the junior staff with his haste and shouting. She also suspected Yolanda and Avery were engaged in a version of finding their balance with each other, and among young ladies who were family, that way would not always be smooth.

“Girls, please stop shouting,” Miss Snyder was saying when Jacaranda arrived at Avery’s room. “I meant no offense, not to anybody. We’re to help each other in this life and—Mrs. Wyeth, hello. I apologize on behalf of the children for the racket.”

“These two are old enough to make their own apologies for cutting up the king’s peace. Now what has caused this uproar? Avery, you first.” Jacaranda closed the door and stood with her arms crossed, barely resisting the urge to tap her foot.

Avery launched a righteous volley in English liberally garnished with French, explaining that dear Wickie was off in the village on her half day, but the Miss Snyder creature attempted to brush Avery’s hairs in Wickie’s absence, and while an aunt might brush a niece’s hairs, Miss Snyder was nobody to be assuming such privileges. Not nobody
at all
, of less consequence than a moose.

Yolanda looked abruptly away, and Miss Snyder looked down at her hands.

“Yolanda, what have you to say?”

Yolanda took a moment to compose herself, for which Jacaranda respected the girl.

“Miss Snyder was only offering to help, and Avery went off on a grand scold, and that was wrong. I am not brushing my niece’s hair until she apologizes.”

“I shall not apologize to somebody I don’t know for forbidding her to brush my hairs.”

“And yet,”—Jacaranda treated Avery’s tousled hair to a slow perusal—“you can hardly come to table with your hair looking like that, can you, child? The hedgehogs will ask to make the acquaintance of your hairdresser.”

Avery got a look at herself in the cheval mirror and was too young to hide a grin. “Wickie will be back, and she can brush my hairs.”

“If she pleases to,” Jacaranda said. “Who pays Wickie’s salary, Miss Avery?”

“Uncle.”

“So from whom will Wickie take her orders?”

“Uncle, but she listens to me, too.”

“Miss Snyder will listen to you, too, so what do you wish you’d said to her?”

Avery studied her reflection in the mirror, biting her lower lip.

“Miss Snyder, I do not know you, and you are not my Wickie. I would not have you brush my hairs. I will brush them myself, but thank you for wishing to help.”

“You love your Wickie,” Miss Snyder said. “Nobody should be insulted by that. Which brush would you like to use?”

Problem solved, Jacaranda repaired to her sitting room, intent on regaining her own balance, with herself, by herself. Alas, Mr. Reilly, the land steward, patrolled the door to her parlor, a relieved smile blooming on his face when he spotted her.

“Our dear Mrs. Wyeth! There you are, and how are you on this fine day?”

Subtlety was not Reilly’s forte, but he was good-hearted, if timorous. The middle of the month would soon be upon them, the master was in residence, and Reilly wasn’t about to forgo his monthly cup of tea.

“I am fine, sir, and you?”

“Ready to spend an hour with a gentle lady,” he said, bowing slightly. “I don’t suppose you have a pot of tea on hand?”

“We’ll ring for a tray.” Like Mr. Simmons and half the footmen, Mr. Reilly indulged a sweet tooth at every opportunity. “How is Mrs. Reilly?”

He prattled on about his wife’s sister’s cousin’s something or other, then wandered around to discussing his various children, at least one of whom was the brightest scholar ever to go up to university, then tiptoed up to the topic of the day with all the stealth of William, the amazing draft sow.

“I suppose I’ll be handing my report to his lordship this month rather than entrusting it to the king’s post. Quite a change, quite a change. But a good change, a happy change, one might say.”

“
Tempus fugit
, Mr. Reilly.” Jacaranda was spared further polite blather by the arrival of the tea tray. She served her guest his usual: no milk, three sugars, and six tea cakes. When Mr. Reilly was enthusiastically ruining his dinner, she started the list for him.

“The Hendersons’ cottage roof is starting to leak in the front room, and the Porters’ oldest son is making noises about going into London to look for work.”

“Is he now? The boy will need a character, and he’s a hard worker.”

“His mother is most anxious to think of him in London, when he’s never set foot from the shire before, but he’s a good man with a horse, and there are horses everywhere.”

“That he is.” Reilly held his cup out for another serving, for demolishing tea cakes at such a great rate was thirsty work. “Any other little details you’d like me to include?”

She went on, recounting progress made by the tenants on various projects and needs foreseeable in the upcoming month. Early summer was a lovely time of year, when the crops were ripening, the weather mild, and a thousand pesky repairs and put-off projects could be tended to if one were diligent and organized.

Reilly’s pencil and paper were out before she’d finished her list, as they usually were. He always thanked her for noting
a few trivialities
he’d missed and made noises about a woman’s eye being sharper about certain things. Then he showed up a month later, smiling, inhaling cakes and biscuits, and reducing ten flooded acres of barley to a triviality.

Jacaranda didn’t mind, really. An estate prospered when the senior staff were congenial and cooperative, and she was out and about with the tenants more than Reilly was. Her successor would be apprised of how things went on, and Trysting would continue to prosper.

Yolanda tapped on the door not two sips after Reilly had left.

“Come in, Yolanda.” Jacaranda peered into her teapot. “I can offer you a cup, if you’re of a mind.”

“No tea, thank you.” She advanced into the room, looking about with obvious curiosity. “Your sitting room is lovely.”

“My retreat, at least it feels that way.” Or
had
felt that way. “What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to ask if I could move to a different room.”

“Of course, but is the bed not to your liking?”

“The bed is quite acceptable, but I’m five doors down from Avery, and I noticed the room across the hall from hers isn’t occupied.” She wandered around the parlor, inspecting much, touching nothing. She did lean in to sniff the white roses in a crystal vase by the window.

Her brother sniffed bouquets in the same manner.

“I can have you moved before tonight.” Jacaranda rose, giving up on her tea. “If your current room is lacking in some regard, I’d rather know about it.”

“Avery has nightmares,” Yolanda said. “Mrs. Hartwick sleeps down the hall and has poor hearing, or she’s unwilling to answer when Avery taps on her door at night. If Avery knows I’m right across the hall, she might rest easier.”

“She’s had a trying start in life, what with losing her parents. What shall I tell your brother regarding this change of venue for you?” Jacaranda gave her roses a drink from the pitcher on the mantel, and wondered if Yolanda might enjoy wearing a touch of rose-water scent. Young ladies could be shy about such things.

She certainly had been.

Yolanda paused before a piece of framed cutwork near the door. “Do you have to tell Worth anything?”